


double knot

by phile



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Boys Being Boys, For like two minutes, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, Slice of Life, Summer Vacation, just suna pining and being an angsty teen for 10k words straight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25767184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phile/pseuds/phile
Summary: “Not bad seeing yer face.”Rintarou liked to think this meant,I missed you.Rintarou falls in love quietly, the same way summer breeze creeps under your shirt and kisses your neck.
Relationships: Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 36
Kudos: 374





	double knot

**Author's Note:**

> i had completed this story about a month ago but i didn't like how it turned out so it's been sitting in my drafts ever since. but then i came across it & was like fuck it. i'll post it. so i brushed it up & slapped like an extra 3k & this is it. 
> 
> warnings for mild swearing + an eyebrow-raising use of onomatopoeia because i rediscovered it recently & i can't shake it off just yet. what the fuck. also unedited because i am impulsive & i just want to get rid of this thing from my drafts... sighs enjoy this atrocity
> 
> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3lotHCcwYea1UhwwAIgpdd?si=iZJ_sPRBSra3Y4fUPfnCJA)

_Flip. Flip_.

Rintarou thumbs the sleek pages of _Volleyball Monthly_ between his fingers carefully. He takes each colorful image and sentence with the exact same ounce of diligence. _Best Volleyball Deals of the Summer!_ Flip. _Exclusive Interview with the Olympic Team!_ Flip. _Rising The Ranks: Top HS Teams to Look Out for This Season!_ Flip. 

He licks his lips, gliding his index under the “INARIZAKI” lined in bold. It’s a picture of them from the first day of Nationals last year, taken right after arriving in Tokyo. Aran’s wide smile, Shinsuke’s polite wave. Atsumu, wearing the disgruntled expression of someone who had been woken up mid-coach-bus-nap. And Osamu, with his arm thrown around Rintarou’s shoulder. They’re smiling. Or, at least, Osamu has this easy grin—Rintarou doesn’t have a blatantly obvious smile. Just the corner of his hooded eyes that crinkle when they lift. Like a secret.

Right, Rintarou thinks. Secrets. _Flip._

“Are ya sure the AC is on?” This is Osamu, asking for the fourth—no, fifth time. He lies with his stomach pressed against the cool floor, his head resting on his arm and sweat trickling from his brow. From where Rintarou has perched above on the couch, he glimpses the subtle ride of Osamu’s shirt, toned back gleaning with sweat. “Oi, ‘Tsumu.”

“I already told ya!” Atsumu calls from the kitchen. He’s been rummaging through the fridge for the last three minutes or so. Bottles clink and fruit tumbles onto the floor. “The AC’s been on the whole time! Whaddya want me t’ do, huh? I can’t control the freakin’ weather!”

The summer break of their last year rolls in like a daydream. Sometimes Rintarou forgets how quickly the days pass and blur into one long memory. Overlapping until you can’t remember where one starts and ends, the kind of thread that runs on for too long because you forget where to snip it in the first place. 

But there’s not a lot to do before Interhigh training kicks in, anyway. Rintarou finds himself coming to the Miya household in feeble attempts to relieve this persistent case of summer boredom. Except, the boredom never fully goes away. He’s sure he just shoulders it onto Atsumu and Osamu and it feels less lonely. This is how he spends half his summer afternoons on the Miya living room couch: doors leading to the veranda sliding wide open, laundry on the clothesline flapping in the breeze, dragonflies skirting onto the coffee table. 

_Flip_ . Last page. _Volleyball is forever in constant evolution, whether it quells growth with a whisper or knocks you on the court with a sudden bang. That is what makes it such an alluring sport! The finite rules breed infinite possibilities—_

“Hngh.” 

Osamu groans, rolls over, and splays his limbs across the floor. The exact brief moment Rintarou shuts the cover of the magazine, smoothing it precisely, Osamu catches his eye from below. Rintarou can’t find himself to break away, not when Osamu’s eyes light up the same way it does when one clears an arcade game the first try. As if to say, _Gotcha!_

“Hey.”

Rintarou blinks. “Hey.”

“Done reading?” And then, “Sunarin. Aren’t ya hot?”

He becomes all too keenly aware of the wet skin of his legs sticking uncomfortably to the leather sofa.

“Of course,” he quips, placing the magazine back on the table, “But I’m not gonna whine about it, unlike someone.”

“Asshole,” Osamu says without the sting.

Somehow, this breaks them into a fit of laughter. (Atsumu, still roaming the kitchen, lets out a whine: “Hey, what’s so funny?”) 

“Oi, Suna. Seriously, I’m dyin’ here.”

He grabs Rintarou’s ankle from the floor, turning his body to face the other boy. Osamu’s fingers are rough and warm, closing over his skin like a blanket. “It’s _hot_. It’s killin’ me.”

“I heard you the first time.” Rintarou wriggles his leg out of Osamu’s grasp. “So?”

“Let’s get ice cream.”

Osamu smiles, a different smile from the picture taken at Nationals. The kind of smile that he wears when he feels good about a spike. The kind of smile he wears when he catches the stray cat sleeping at their gate in the morning. The kind of small, satisfied smile that churns Rintarou’s gut wrung. The boy ignores the smile and focuses on the lock of hair clinging to Osamu’s forehead instead. 

“Ice cream?

“Yeah.”

Rintarou swallows. “Okay. Ice cream.”

(“Oi!” Atsumu emerges from the kitchen when they’ve just about left the house, scrambling their shoes on. “Bring back some banana milk, will ya! Which one of you drank m’ last carton, anyway?”)

The vending machine at the corner store is out of order. They buy popsicles from inside instead, fingering through pre-packaged bento and prodding at the beer section and shoving their arms in the freezers for cold air until the manager tells them off to go pay. When they step out into the loud humid air, Rintarou can already feel the popsicle melting in his hand. 

They sit on the cool side of the steps. Their legs are too long that they stretch past the shade so the boys tuck them against their chests, sweat racing down their necks as they rip the plastic covering and shove the coldness into their mouths. 

It’s fucking hot. 

“I think I might die ‘ere,” Osamu groans. 

Rintarou hums over his popsicle. Artificial cherry syrup seeps down his throat. Osamu runs his tongue over his own popsicle absentmindedly, awfully distracting. Rintarou tries to avoid staring at wet lips, and he presses the frozen treat against the inside of his cheek instead like it’ll cure the heat. 

“Your mouth is blue,” he says.

“Yeah?” Osamu sticks out his tongue, “All of it?”

“You look like a Smurf.”

“Fuck off.” He’s laughing. Rintarou doesn’t realize that his own lips are upturned, too.

“What about me?” He parts his mouth, then quickly retracts. “Wait—”

Osamu snickers, “Yer popsicle is red, idiot.”

Rintarou wrinkles his nose. “Whatever.” And bites another chunk off his popsicle. 

“You look like a vampire,” the other boy tries.

“Ugh.”

“Alright, alright,” Osamu says, twirling the wooden stick of his half-eaten sweet—

“It looks like ‘Tsumu’s dye job from first year.”

Rintarou chokes. It shouldn’t be funnier than it is, really. But they end up laughing until their sides cramp. He might be able to tell if there are actual tears coming from his eyes if it isn’t for his entire face riddled with sweat already. 

In the middle of it, his popsicle teeters from his fingers and falls onto the ground splat.

“Shit.” He drops it, the attempt for salvage a second late. Osamu only cackles harder.

“Shut up,” Rintarou grumbles and retaliates with a nudge to the other boy’s ribcage. 

“Fuck, I can’t brea— _Hey_!”

Osamu’s popsicle topples onto his shirt, slicking it with blue residue. They watch it hit the gravel in the same wet squelching sound next to Rintarou’s fallen one. 

_Splat._ A moment of buzzing silence.

“Damn.”

“It was yer fault, bastard!”

They don’t have enough change left to buy another two popsicles, so they walk back home. The sidewalk seems to broil under the soles of their shoes. Cicadas drone and bells ring as children bike past them in a flurry. This is the sort of heat that makes his eyelids burn and everything in the far distance appear like radio waves. 

Even then, in the sweltering moment, Rintarou finds himself unbothered. Melted popsicle sticking between his fingers and the mosquitoes nipping at his shins, he’d still stay where he is now: Rintarou and Osamu, Osamu and Rintarou. The same two boys that talk and play and act a fool because they can. The same two boys they always have been.

(“What is it?”

“Hm?”

“Yer staring at me.”

Rintarou thinks mildly, _Damn, I was?_

“I-We— Did we forget something?”

“Forget?”

“Mm. I feel like we did.”

Frowning, “No, I don’t think so.” And then, “Wanna race back?”

“Ha—?!” Tripping over his feet, “Now?”

“What, ya need a headstart?”

“Fuck you,” he says, and kicks his legs into momentum. Osamu, laughing breathlessly right behind him. 

Rintarou runs the same way his chest heaves as Osamu brushes past his skin: rising, leaping, soaring into oblivion.)

They forget to buy Atsumu’s banana milk, of course. The three settle it with a water gun fight until they’re falling onto the backyard grass from laughter and sweat, soaked in lukewarm tap water and the preening afternoon sun.

In retrospect, telling Atsumu was not the greatest idea Rintarou has ever had. Really, it should’ve been Shinsuke, who’s always managed to give sound advice without so much as blinking an eye. Or Aran, even with his tendency to sugarcoat everything. Hell, Rintarou would have rather blurted it out to one of the first years in the locker room on impulse. Out of all the people he could have talked to, it was Miya Osamu’s own damn twin instead.

It’s not like he intended to. Honestly. It just so happened that day in February when Osamu came down with a fever and missed school. It was the first time walking home that it was just them two. Or, maybe not the _first_ time, but the first time in a long time. 

Rintarou and Atsumu. Atsumu and Rintarou. Their names together felt like a seesaw struggling for equilibrium.

Frost bellowed. They trekked through the snow, breaths fogging beneath their heavy scarves and the bag of medicine rustling awkwardly between them. Atsumu broke the silence between frozen twigs snapping under their feet. 

“Sunarin.”

“Mm.”

“D’ya have a crush on ‘Samu or somethin’?”

Rintarou halted. What? Did he hear that right?

He must have been hallucinating. Or paralyzed. Or both. Very carefully, he regarded Atsumu. _How does fuck does he_ —no, he’s messing with you. That’s Atsumu for you, fucking asshole. Breathe. Relax. Think, Rintarou. But by the time he was searching for an excuse, _something,_ Atsumu had gotten that shit-eating grin spreading across his face.

“Hell, I knew it! Since when?”

Rintarou tried keeping his voice level. “What are you talking about?” 

Atsumu sent him an unimpressed look.

“I don’t,” he stammered, suddenly ashamed about playing dumb, “I don’t like him.”

Fuck. Even from the way the sentenced faltered into the air weakly, Rintarou knew Atsumu would have none of it.

“Yer a shitty liar.” The other boy sounded almost pitiful.

Plan A, failed. _He knows he knows he knows—_ Rintarou clenched his gloved hand, then unclenched. “Atsumu, I swear to God, if you tell _anyone_ —”

“Oi, ya threatening me now?”

He was swelling with panic. Suna Rintarou did not panic. 

The next best thing besides panicking was decking a fistful of snow at Atsumu. 

Before Rintarou even realized it himself, he had shoved his fist into a pile of snow and then, the ugly wet sound of a clean hit _._ There was a red spot forming on Atsumu’s face now, slush hanging off his chin. The boy looked back down at his gloved hand, covered in a thin layer of white, as if he still couldn’t quite grasp that this was, in fact, his body.

“The hell’d ya do that for?!” Atsumu wiped off the remains of snow from his cheek. He was fuming.

Rintarou’s voice wavered. “Don’t tell him.”

“What?”

“Don’t tell Osamu anything, okay?”

“Yer fucking crazy—Alright! I won’t tell, damn.” Atsumu turned and started walking, sniffling from the cold. “Christ. Don’t give me that stinkin’ face.”

Rintarou let out a breath, curling into a plume of smoke in the cold, and trailed after him. If the silence between them before was awkward, it was now unbearable. Relief suddenly washed over with a pang of guilt. 

“Does it hurt?”

Atsumu cast him a sideways glance. Petty, as always. “Didn’t know you had it in ya, Sunarin.”

“Me neither.” He surprised himself with how earnest he sounded.

Snowfall returned as they made their way to the Miya household. Flakes floating down and resting at the tips of his hair. Wind blowing like a ghost. And that stupid plastic bag knocking at the side of his leg with each step.

“Sorry.”

Atsumu made a face. “Oi, don’t apologize t’ me. S’ weird when you and ‘Samu do it. Plus, I was a dick about it.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t agree with me!”

“What the hell happened t’ ya, ‘Tsumu?” Osamu said when they got to his room, faces flushed from the weather and wringing their scarves and gloves off. Rintarou’s heart clenched upon seeing the boy’s pale face. The bags under his eyes were too dark and there were beads of sweat dotting his forehead. Under the layers of blankets, he appeared like some sickly Russian doll.

He coughed, “Looks like a snowman smashed yer face.”

“He slipped on some ice,” Rintarou supplied before Atsumu could get a word out, to which the latter sneered at.

“I did n—”

“We got you some medicine on the way back,” He stepped toward Osamu’s bed, holding the bag up, “And I brought porridge. Atsumu can heat it up for you when you’re hungry.”

(“What?” Atsumu squawked, the exact moment Osamu slipped, “ ‘m hungry.”)

The ends of Osamu’s mouth tugged upward. “Worried about me?”

“Not at all,” Rintarou deadpanned. “Just working a charity case here. Gotta rack my volunteer hours up.”

Osamu let out a chuckle before it turned to a bad coughing fit. Rintarou handed him a tissue from the bedside. 

“Looking for a fight, Rin? Sounds like ya asking me t’ knock yer ass out.”

Rintarou warmed at the nickname. “Tough talk coming from someone who can’t even get out of bed.”

“I’m here, too,” Atsumu complained from the door.

“Dontcha have somethin’ to heat up for me?”

Rintarou snorted. When Atsumu trudged away to the kitchen, grumbling about _rude younger brothers_ and _dumb friends_ and _idiots, every single one of them_ —all nonsense—, Osamu glanced at Rintarou with bleary eyes.

“Not bad seeing yer face.”

Rintarou liked to think this meant, _I missed you_.

“Hmm.” He observed Osamu’s garish state, tight-lipped. Then, softly, “Let me get you a new towel.”

By the time he came back, hand towel freshly soaked with cold water, Osamu had fallen asleep. He slept and Rintarou thought of the first whisper of a tranquil prairie, each breath hushing the world into silence. He slept and Rintarou wondered about his dreams. He slept and Rintarou draped the wet towel over his warm forehead like a kiss.

Osamu stares at him when they’re in line for tickets. The amusement park is colored with throngs of people and cachinnations and a city of lights. Hot night air nips at the collars of their shirts.

“Oi, when did ya get taller?”

“Me?” He reaches for the top of his head, swiping his hand back and forth. “Did I really?”

“Sunarin, ya better stop gettin’ taller than me.”

“You better start catching up.”

Roller coasters grate and metal rails clang in the far distance. Ringing as waves strike against the tide. Roller coasters mounting, diving, simmering at the pit of his stomach.

“I used t’ be taller than ya,” Osamu grumbles.

“We were kids.”

“I’ve more room for growth, still.”

“How would you know that?”

“M’hands are larger than yours.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Hm.”

Osamu’s hand is a hearth, flooding sweet flames down his wrist. 

“See?”

“My fingers are longer, Osamu.”

“But mine are wider. Look.”

Rintarou does. He looks and he looks and he does everything in himself not to fold his fingers over Osamu’s.

“We look stupid.”

That laugh, the kind that climbs slow and drops short. Osamu’s laugh. Rintarou knows it by the drag of his coarse tongue, by the tremor of his Adam’s apple, by the faint staccato that barely slips from his teeth. The very rhythm that brews in the back of Rintarou’s mind, burning.

“There’s nothin’ to be ashamed of, Sunarin.”

Rintarou replays the words in his head. He doesn’t say that roller coasters rise only to fall.

They slice ripe peaches on Rintarou’s porch on a Wednesday morning. Osamu cuts them into fine pieces with tender hands. The thick saccharine fragrance pours from their fingers and slips from the corners of their mouths. Rintarou looks at him on a Wednesday morning and wants to ask Osamu how he wishes to change the world.

“D’ya still have that tennis stuff?” Is what Osamu says when Rintarou finds him at his doorstep. 

The taste of curry is still tingling at the side of his mouth when he stares at Osamu, and says, “What?”

They had just finished dinner when the doorbell rang. As Rintarou peeked through the windows and saw Osamu, shifting his weight on their welcome mat and whistling to himself, something in his chest flipped. And now he stands against the doorframe, squinting at Osamu like an idiot.

“Y’know. Tennis rackets. Tennis balls.”

“The tennis court is closed by now.”

“Today’s yer lucky day, Sunarin.”

Rintarou furrows his eyebrows. “Huh.”

Osamu raises his hand, a lanyard of keys dangling from his fingers. “Remember that bet I had with Heisuke?”

Rintarou racks his brain for a while, but falls short. 

“Yeah,” he says anyway, just to see Osamu’s smug grin widen.

“Well, his dad manages the tennis court next to the park. And Heisuke promised me the spare keys if I won,” and shakes the clinking metal in front of Rintarou proudly, “Which I did.”

“What?” He says when the boy fixes him a certain look. “Oi, it’s only until break ends. I have to return ‘em then, so we got t’ take advantage, Suna!”

“Rintarou? Who’s at the door?” It’s his mother, emerging from the kitchen and hanging her apron on the rack. Upon the sight of Osamu, she lets out a pleased gasp.

“Samu-kun!”

“Hi, auntie.” Osamu waves from the door, straightening up. 

“You’ve grown so much since I’ve last seen you! Why don’t you come in, quick!”

Osamu’s eyes curve as Rintarou’s mother dotes over him. He seems to fit right in under her care, taking each caress and gush with a gentleness that makes Rintarou’s own throat tighten. Looks over at him, with some sort of almost lovestruck smile. It’s almost like they’re… almost like the faint workings of a far-fetched dream. Too perfect, better off crushed. But Rintarou is selfish, and pretends this is the Osamu that belongs to him for this fragment of a moment. He smiles back.

“Mom,” he groans when she ushers Osamu inside.

“Oh, don’t use that tone,” she scolds Rintarou, continuing to coo over the other boy: “Samu-kun, what brings you here? Did you have dinner yet? If you’re still hungry, this auntie has some curry for you—”

“Actually, Suna and I are goin’ to play tennis.” Osamu scratches the back of his head, sending him a frantic look. Rintarou almost snorts. The boy hates curry.

“Right,” he says, catching the drift, “I’ll go get the stuff.”

Rintarou heads back to the storage closet, emerging from the dusty little room with two rackets and a grimy green ball. 

His father catches him in the hallway. The sound of earnest steps slowing down and reading glasses perched on his nose: “What’s with all that stuff?”

“Osamu and I are playing tennis.”

His father frowns. “The tennis court is closed.”

“Hey, Uncle Suna!” Osamu calls from the other end of the hallway. “Don’t worry about it!"

“It’s summer,” Rintarou says like it's supposed to refute anything. He doesn’t feel like explaining how Osamu has access to the court.

The lines of his father’s face deepen.

His mother touches his shoulder, soothing, “Let them be. It’s the last summer they’ll be boys.”

Last summer? Something about the words has him a little uneasy, but Rintarou goes along with it anyway and tosses a racket to Osamu. He catches it with ease, twirling the handle under his elbow.

“We’re going now, Dad.”

“Hmph. Stay out of trouble.”

“Of course, sir.” Osamu salutes from the door, gloating. Rintarou shoves him outside with a laugh.

Rackets bumping against their knees and tennis ball prickling his palm, Rintarou lets Osamu whisk him into the winding pink evening. His lungs, filling with the harmony of their sneakers scraping warm cement.

The thing about tennis is that they both kind of fucking suck. 

Rintarou’s body is bred for volleyball. The sport is ingrained in the stretch of his palms to the sweep of his legs. Every movement is dedicated to it so that there is instinct before there is cognition. The sculpted bend and wired lines of him belong to volleyball. In turn, this means there is no room in the body of Suna Rintarou to accept the dragging bulky weight of a tennis racket.

“I‘m servin’!” Osamu calls from the other side of the court. Rintarou has lost count on how many times he has said this. Well, volleyball or not, a game is still a game. He widens his stance, tongue between teeth.

Osamu rolls his wrist, and this time, tosses the tennis ball with softer precision. His legs hesitate for a moment, fighting against his reflex to jump and grounds his heels instead. Focus, targeting eyes on the ball. The swing of his racket, wobbling upward, and— _puck—_ the tennis ball manages flight.

The ball is infuriatingly tiny, but Rintarou attempts to gauge the distance nevertheless. That little green dot floating up, then down—there, that’s the bounce—now here—no, over there— _Ah,_ wait!

 _Clang._ The ball misses his racket. It clashes against the chain-link fence. And it topples back onto the ground, rolling away sadly.

Osamu busts out laughing.

“Fuck,” he wheezes, “Yer shit at this, Suna!”

“Shut up.” Rintarou jogs after the ball, blood rushing to his cheeks. “You shouldn’t be talking, either.”

It’s his serve now. Rintarou underhands it and sends the ball over the net. Osamu connects it.

“Yes!” He whoops, rejoicing, “Take that, Sunarin!”

“Tch. Don’t get cocky now, Osamu!”

Rintarou catches the flying ball with his racket and thrusts it back. _Finally_! He thinks, and releases the laughter of a boy brimming with victory, even in the smallest of feats.

They keep going. The tennis ball is exchanged, dropped, held, beaten. They keep going so their faces grow proud and red, so their limbs quake, so the wind crumbles beneath them. The large tennis court and two boys shouting into the night. The tennis ball, drenched in sweat.

The feelings elicited from tennis are not unlike volleyball, Rintarou decides.

They keep going until there isn’t a game of tennis anymore. Osamu ends up in his bounds, anyway. It is the stark familiar presence as it has always been—being on the same side of the net, conquering.

Osamu collapses onto the ground, graceless, stretching himself over the floor of the court. He rests his head and looks into the black sky and Rintarou sees his eyes, caving.

“What are ya doin’, standing there? Lay down.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“We’ll both be idiots, then. C’mon.”

Rintarou doesn’t put up the fight. He folds his legs under him and lowers his back next to Osamu and—and he gapes into the array of stars. 

“Woah,” he says.

“Right?”

There might have been times before this where Rintarou has looked up at night and seen the stars. Hell, there definitely has. But those memories are nothing now. The thing about stars is that every time you see them it is still your first. 

They are splattered, wanton, invincible. They strike against the world like a force of celestial soldiers. They could rain down on them at any moment. The cold hard ground of the tennis court presses against his body but he is flying. Rintarou is a tennis ball hurtling into the radiant unknown.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen ‘em like this,” Osamu murmurs beside him. From the corners of his eyes, Rintarou can see his chest lifting, sinking, heavy with adrenaline. 

“Shit, it looks unreal.”

“Shit,” Rintarou agrees.

Expanding, glowing, engulfing them. They are two boys in orbit.

“There’s Orion.” Rintarou lifts his fingers overhead, drawing between the dots.

Osamu turns his head. “What?”

“Orion. The constellation. We learned it, remember? Here, you can see his belt—” and he traces over the stars like a paintbrush gliding against the canvas—“These three, they form a line.”

“It doesn’t look like a belt.” 

“If you really wanted to, I’m sure you could make it look like anything you want.”

The dry remark has Osamu laughing for some reason. Rintarou can feel his body thrumming with it.

“Yer a pain in the ass, Sunarin.”

It’s easy to forget that there is a whole universe and they are just the tiny sliver of it. Like the plastic houses in the center of snowglobes, pretty little things kept blissfully ignorant. You’d rather be content with what you can reach. But this, right now, is not plastic snowflakes whirling or Christmas glitter swishing—this is the glass cracked, spilling upon Rintarou in a form of a thousand suns.

“Yer thinkin’.” Osamu says. It’s not a guess. Rintarou turns his head to the side. Under this light, Osamu looks like a dream, not fully fleshed out. Something out of a myth where flowers can speak and angels roam the earth. Descent of stars.

“Maybe.”

“What is it?”

Rintarou grazes his nails against the rough ground beneath him. “Remember what my mom said, earlier?”

“About me getting more handsome?”

“...”

Grinning, “Alright, sorry. It was funny, okay!” Then, his voice easing: “About what?”

“That this is our last summer as boys,” Rintarou says. “You think it’s true?”

“Dunno,” Osamu answers truthfully. “Is it weird I can’t imagine us _not_ being boys?”

This time it’s Rintarou’s turn to laugh. “We’re aging either way, Osamu.”

“Still. I don’t think a part of us will ever stop being boys.”

Rintarou thinks so, too. He decides to humor Osamu, and says, “One day we’ll have hair falling out and tripping over our canes. Will we still be boys then?”

“ ‘Course! Seriously, ya think we’ll be havin’ coffee over morning newspaper ‘nd mahjong? I’ll still be kickin’ yer ass at tennis when I’m eighty-five.”

Rintarou snorts. “You can barely kick my ass now.”

They laugh for what feels like the hundredth time in one night. Rintarou will cherish the feeling with each breath, his lips gasping for air and warmth spreading to his toes.

They’ve lost track of time, but neither of them really care. Time feels trivial when the universe has never felt so close. 

Osamu puts his head under his hands and speaks to the sky. Suddenly, his voice becomes very, very still.

“I think I‘m going to quit volleyball.”

Something in his brain snaps like glowsticks crackling between fists. 

Rintarou sits up. “What?”

He’s searching for the punchline in Osamu’s face, but the boy just smiles. “Yeah.”

His stomach drops. Osamu… quitting volleyball?

“I don’t know,” Osamu goes on, not really meeting his gaze, “I love playing. I really do, but… I don’t love it the way you guys do. Atsumu, you—ya guys probably want t’ go pro, or somethin’. I don’t think I’m cut out for that, y’know. I think… there’s more for me than just playin’ volleyball. So I decided it would be m’ last year… 

“Hey, why are you so quiet? Did I scare ya off?”

He’s joking, but his eyes seem to flicker nervously across Rintarou’s face. The boy swallows.

“I’m just surprised,” he murmurs. “Is that… what did Atsumu say about that?”

“Huh? Oh.” Osamu appears a little sheepish. “Actually, you’re the only person that knows—” and Rintarou flushes, what’s this feeling? Me? _I’m the only one_ — “Atsumu… I’d rather not tell him now. Don’t want it to mess up his plays, or anythin’. He can be sensitive, like that. You know how he is.”

The corners of Rintarou’s mouth twitch upright. They all know how Atsumu is.

A beat passes, Osamu locking eyes with him.

“You can keep a secret, right?”

“... ‘Course.” Rintarou’s throat scratches when he says it. He could keep a secret fine, if anything. It’s not like he doesn’t have his own fair share of secrets either. Not that he would tell Osamu, not when his biggest secret of all…

He blows his hair out of his face. “So, what are you gonna do then?”

Osamu shrugs. As much shrugging as someone can do lying down. 

“Whatever I want.”

He frowns. “Osamu…”

“Sunarin, ya like my cooking, right?”

Despite himself, a laugh escapes Rintarou. “You’re crazy.”

“Oi, I’m serious.”

He looks down at Osamu, half-smiling. “You do make some pretty good onigiri.”

“Pretty good? It’s fucking great,” he says and watches Rintarou’s smile widen. “I’ll open my own shop. Doesn’t sound too bad, huh?”

Laughter comes so easily to them. Rintarou thinks he laughs his best laugh when he’s with Osamu. The kind of laugh that could swallow himself whole in happiness.

“It’s only fair now that I’ve told ya,” Osamu asks when Rintarou falls back against his side. “What’s your secret, Sunarin?”

The boy jolts slightly. Of course, he’d ask this when least warranted. The tip of his fingers trembling as he clasps over the hem of his shirt, grabbing for an excuse.

“I’ll go pro.”

Osamu sends him an unamused look. “That doesn’t count, I figured out as much. Suna, that’s pretty fucking obvious.”

“ _You’re_ the one who asked!”

“I asked for a _secret_! What, unless yer going abroad or something?”

“Like Aran?” Their former wing spiker is currently in the States, balancing between university classes and national competitions. A feat only someone as cool as Aran could accomplish. Rintarou wears a dubious expression. “With my English grades?”

Osamu barks a laugh. “Guess you’re meant to stay in Japan, then.”

Rintarou thinks he almost says this wistfully, gladly. A surge of hope broiling at his chest. Maybe, just maybe, Osamu needs him just like he needs Osamu.

He looks at the boy, really does—grey eyes glittering in the dark expanse, heat-flushed cheeks and moon-lit skin. It’s like his breath is stolen away when he finally speaks.

“Secret, huh?”

Osamu sits up, leveling with him. Rintarou can practically see his wagging tail. “It’s a fair trade, Sunarin.”

Rintarou considers him, very carefully. I could say it, he thinks. _I like you. I like you, Osamu_.

“My secret is…” His voice falters upon the abyss of Osamu’s gaze. His heart is suddenly caught in his throat, choking up silent noise. Not now, Rintarou goes mum. I can’t.

“Hm?”

So he waits. Waiting is safe. Rintarou swallows. “I could probably stay here forever.”

Osamu’s smile is the tennis racket slinging his heart beyond the stars.

One of the afternoons Rintarou is at the Miyas, it rains. Osamu brings down his laptop and they watch movies to pass the storm. Like when they were kids—pillows flooding the couch and dried seaweed crumbling between them and lights out—they sit legs crossed and shoulders touching. They watch American films, the cheesy superhero kind, and debate about which abilities are better. They wrestle over the last Pocky stick. They throw pillows at Atsumu when he comes down to join. 

They give up on superhero movies. They play rock paper scissors over the next title, but by then Atsumu has already picked out _Life of Pi_.

By the time it’s some twenty minutes in and the screen shows the tiger killing the goat, the snacks have run out. By the time the storm erupts, Atsumu has fallen asleep on the couch. By the time the boy and the tiger arrive at the floating island, Osamu rests his head on Rintarou’s shoulder, drooling. By the time the credits roll, Rintarou thinks about kissing Osamu.

He never does. Instead, he closes his eyes and imagines he is a boy on a boat, drifting into untouchable waters. 

  
  
  


On days where Rintarou and Osamu get restless, they take the train to downtown and hit the mall—sometimes with their friends, sometimes just the two of them. Between the tall skylight ceilings and glossy white floors, they weave in between stores aimlessly, lazily. They buy crepes in the food court, toss a few coins on the claw machine, and split the cash on a new release at the game shop.

Boys with too much time. Boys with nothing to do.

They head back to the station, shoulders bumping and jokes tumbling off their lips. The streets of summer in full swing: cars with windows rolled down and laughing girls in sundresses; something like pop music blasting on the other end of the road; dogs yipping at passing buses and tourists in their bright caps. 

Osamu’s head is all in that new game, hands clasped around Rintarou’s PSP almost like some possessive child. He warns the boy to pay attention to his surroundings but—Osamu gets hot-headed around any sort of competition, even virtual. It’s a Miya thing.

He nearly stumbles headfirst into a pole if it isn’t for Rintarou to grab him back, a remark already tipping at his lips, except—

Osamu looks at him this way, this jarring and heart-lurching way. He looks at Rintarou like something as familiar as your own shadow appears different in a new angle of light. Osamu looks at him like a boy in love.

Were his eyes usually this soft, he thinks, this deep? And why me? Why is he looking at me like that?

But maybe he’s getting too hopeful. Instead, Rintarou pulls Osamu toward him, snickering, “I told you, didn’t I? If it weren’t for me, your stubborn ass would have bust your shit.”

“Fuck off.” 

“No ‘thank you’?” He teases, elbowing the boy’s side. 

“Shut up.” But Osamu doesn’t shake his arm off. His face is a little red, too, cheekbones glowing under sweet summer light.

Must be the heat, Rintarou thinks.

The train station is a little crowded given a weekend of nice weather. They manage to squeeze into the third cart, legs brushing as they grab the seats closest to the door.

Rintarou leans back into the bench, letting out a huff as he closes his eyes. Osamu has already taken his PSP back out. The boy tries to suppress another laugh as Osamu begins heatedly working the controls of the new game.

“ ‘m not giving it back until I beat it,” Osamu grumbles.

“That’s your whole lifetime, ‘Samu.”

Seated across, a doting grandma fixing the yellow straps of a young child’s backpack. An old man sitting alone, fingering through the morning paper two seats down, all bushy eyebrows and cigarettes. And a couple of college boys huddled around the poles, jostling over their phone:

“Is that her? Shit, she’s hot—!”

“Shut up—”

“Oi, lemme see!”

Rintarou eyes that same group of college boys again, a little more distasteful than the passing look from before.

“Damn,” the one in a red shirt whistles, cheeky, “she’s fucking _fine_.”

The one in white snickers, “She any good in bed? Bet she’s tight.”

“Fuck you.” The last one grabs his phone back, although can’t help but look a little smug. “Should’ve heard the sounds she was making ‘cus of _me_ last night.”

They garner glares from across the train car, but none of them seem to notice. Rintarou frowns, turning away. Did all guys talk about girls like this? He looks back at Osamu, still focused on beating the game’s final boss. They talked about anything—volleyball, school, favorite shows—but girls, really. 

The train squeals into a halt as the next stop comes up, and the college boys leave through the doors in irkingly high spirits. They’re promptly replaced by businessmen filing in from work, all blue ties loose and leather suitcases shoved under benches, muttering feverishly into their phones.

The doors close, and Rintarou breathes a sigh of relief.

“What assholes.” Osamu startles him, not looking up. The screen below them flashes ‘GAME OVER’ once more. He tsks, shoving the PSP into Rintarou’s hands.

“Oh,” he blinks, taking it wordlessly from Osamu’s fingers. “Yeah.” And then, “Some guys talk about girls like that, I guess.”

“Do ya care?” He stares at Osamu. The boy coughs, a little stiff. “About that kinda stuff, I mean.”

This is… new. Rintarou considers him. “I dunno. You’re the one who’s pretty popular with girls between us.”

Yeah, him and Atsumu both were. Every Valentine’s and White Day the team would find those twins’ lockers flooding with letters and sweets, all sort of pink delicacies. They all got a kick out teasing them, too—although Rintarou couldn’t help be especially smug at the end of the day knowing that Osamu never gave any special attention to confessions at all. 

Osamu wears something like a frown. “I’ve never had a girlfriend, though. You?”

The train thrums roughly below them, PSP long forgotten in his hands. Rintarou swallows, “No.” And then, testing the waters, “What’s your type, Osamu?”

“Type?” 

“Mm.”

Osamu shrugs—this funny little forward shrug, another Miya quirk—and tugs at the collar of his shirt. “I don’t really care how they look… Someone that gets along well with me is enough.”

Rintarou can’t help it. He lets out a laugh, the airy noise earning a dirty look from the businessmen on the other end of the cart, still talking deep into their phones.

“What?”

“That’s a given, Osamu.”

“Sorry, didn’t know there were rules,” Osamu huffs dryly. “Then what would _you_ want in a girl, Sunarin?” 

_Ah,_ Rintarou pauses. It’s undeniably a question he’d brought upon himself, but he feels cornered nevertheless. He rolls his shoulder back anxiously. _I don’t like girls_ —though, that wouldn’t be right to say. Osamu’s expectant gaze is all the more intense than merely attentive, and Rintarou looks away, mumbling:

“I don’t really care about that stuff, either.”

Osamu lets out a noise of disappointment, crossing his arms as he leans back. “That’s no fun! Yer worse than I am.”

Rintarou kicks Osamu’s leg in response. Osamu yelps, jabbing him back, erupting as much tackling on a train as one can do.

They bicker like this all the way back, dumb conversations about dating and girls forgotten in the instant. It’s better that they talk about anything else, Rintarou thinks with relief. Still, maybe if he was a girl, things would be easier. Maybe if he was a girl, he would be truthful to Osamu.

When they get off the station and separate ways, Rintarou walks back home and his heart devours itself in such heavy thoughts. 

Yeah. _If_.

In the solitude he can’t help but think what an awful word it is. 

  
  
  


Rintarou showers twice as long during the summer. Summer air is disgusting and humid and it sticks to him like a slimy second skin. Rintarou scrubs the second skin off painstakingly until the raw flesh pinkens underneath. Water and soap. Wash, rinse, repeat. Steam rising from his pores slowly, steadily.

Rintarou showers until he can’t fucking breathe. Rintarou showers and turns off the water and stands in the deafening silence. Water dripping from his faucet and the heavy breaths shuddering from his lips like a terrible rhythm of melancholy. He gets out. He looks in the mirror and pretends he has been reborn.

Rintarou only ever lets himself feel sorry in the shower.

  
  
  


When he opens the door to his bedroom, towel slung over his neck and wearing a fresh pair of shorts, there’s a missed call waiting for him.

Kita Shinsuke. Four minutes ago.

Rintarou taps the screen and presses the phone to his ear. One, two, three rings. A quiet click.

“Suna.” Shinsuke’s voice is oddly clear over the line, each syllable of his even and crisp. Rintarou has forgotten how much he missed this familiar voice.

“Hey.” He flings himself onto his bed. It smells like cucumber shampoo and worn linen. “Sorry. I was in the shower.”

“That’s fine. How’ve ya been?”

Rintarou thinks about his shower. And then Osamu. And then his feelings. And then tries to unthink. “I’ve been.”

Shinsuke doesn’t really laugh. He does this thing where he lets a little breath through his nostrils, but Rintarou knows it’s a laugh anyway.

“How’s university treating you, captain?”

“I’m not captain anymore.”

“Once a captain, always a captain.”

Shinsuke makes a noise of disagreement.

“University is the same as always.” He hears paper shuffling in the background. Rintarou imagines the boy in his clean dorm, unwrinkled sheets and shoes lined against his door. “I think I’m managin’ pretty well.”

Shinsuke, humble as ever. Rintarou switches the phone to his other ear. “You’re probably acing all your classes, Kita-san.”

Another noise, more disagreeable than the first. Then, “Have you planned out for college yet?”

Rintarou closes his eyes. “Do we have to talk about me right now?”

“If ya don’t want to,” but Shinsuke has always been adamant. “I just wanted t’ check up on you.”

 _Check up on you_ . Rintarou despises this phrase. This is the volleyball captain variation of _You seem like you’re in a shitty place and I’m trying to deal with it_.

He internally groans, rolling over to his back on the bed. “Did Atsumu text you?”

“He’s worried.”

“He should’ve taken it up with me,” Rintarou says, even though it’s unbearable when Atsumu goes full-captain mode on him. “And I told him already. I’m thinking about going pro.”

“That’s not a college plan.” 

“I’m going to college. Then I’m going pro.”

Shinsuke sighs, “Yer more stubborn than the twins sometimes, I swear.”

“Now that’s just mean.”

“Suna.”

“Kita. San.”

Rintarou opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. That bare, bland, whitewashed ceiling. Outside, the summer sun shifts, thrives. But the afternoon light trickling between the window blinds doesn’t make any effort to paint his walls, as if repulsed. He doesn’t move an inch and lets the ventilated air tickle the back of his neck.

Shinsuke changes the subject.

“What have ya been doin’ this summer?”

“The usual. Training camp starts soon.” He sits back up against his bed, fingering the cloth of his shirt. “Homework. Sleeping. Been hanging with Osamu a lot, I guess.”

“Osamu.” Shinsuke echoes the name like it reminds him of something. _Something_. 

He stills. Rintarou knows this tone all too well. Fuck.

Suddenly, the stagnant air tastes awfully bitter. There’s nothing left for him to feel but something between rage and hurt and a little fear.

“Did Atsumu tell you that, too?”

“No.” Shinsuke pauses, softly, “I figured.”

Rintarou doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It doesn’t occur to him at the moment there is a ball of fear forming at the base of his throat. 

A pause. They’re both thinking of the next move. 

“Y’know what my granny always says?”

The inevitable Grandma Kita lecture. Rintarou fiddles with the loose thread at the hem of his shirt. His own voice sounds foreign to him. “What?”

Shinsuke’s voice becomes tinged with a memory. 

“Birds don’t learn how to fly inside their nests, Suna.

“You’ve never liked gettin’ out of yer comfort zone,” he tells him, leaving no room to soften the edges. If there’s one thing, Shinsuke has never wasted a word in his life. “Ya know what I think? I think you’re afraid of taking risks. I think you’ve gotten so used to gettin’ things handed to ya, that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to strive for somethin’ in the first place.”

Rintarou doesn’t say a word, holding his breath somewhere.

“Even then— ya wanted t’ be captain, right?”

“I never told you that.”

“Exactly,” and Shinsuke sounds like he’s got that captain lecture look on. Rintarou imagines his straightened shoulders and furrowed eyebrows—“I’m sure ya thought of it, more than once. But ya never came to me. You waited for Osamu t’ refuse, then for Atsumu t’ step forward. Took vice captain when I gave it to ya.”

His throat scorching as he says it, “That’s how it works, Kita-san.”

“And if I didn’t give you the title?” Shinsuke asks, but it’s not a question. “Ya can’t go pro like this, Suna. You can’t give up like you do. One of these days, yer going t’ have to reach out for things yerself.” 

Rintarou bites his lip. I know, he wants to say. Ever since that humiliating defeat to Karasuno last year, he’s more than familiar with that part of himself. He knows that he’s too comfortable. Growth breeds fear this way. Nationals ignited something, that refusal to accept loss that easily. Where is that same drive now? Where is his will?

There’s a string of silence crackling the phone line. Rintarou rolls the thread over the flesh of his fingers until they appear like cherry tomatoes. His lungs are burning.

Rintarou’s voice breaks: “I just like him so much.”

“I know.”

“I’m scared.”

“I know.”

“And I’ve never… This is my best friend, Kita-san.”

“I know.”

“He likes girls. He’ll hate me.”

Shinsuke’s voice is infuriatingly calm. “You don’t know that.”

“Not gonna quote _obaa-chan_ on me again?”

“I think ya know better than for me to tell ya, Suna Rintarou.”

Rintarou hates him. He hates how Shinsuke has never been wrong.

His heart beats faintly, numb against its own ribcage. Rintarou pulls his finger from his shirt and the loose thread snaps from the hem, falling lifelessly onto the floor. 

“I’ll be back in town next week,” Shinsuke says, after a long beat. His words sound like they’re coming from underwater. “See you then.”

The words barely manage to climb from his throat:

“Yeah. See you then.” 

Rintarou ends the call, buries his face into a pillow, and aches for anything else but his existence.

_Scratch. Scratch_.

Rintarou grits his nails against the lapel of his yukata. The colorful fabric itches his skin red, a persistent parasite. He drags his fingers against the cloth like a broken record, from the base of his throat to the start of his chest and back from the top.

He looks over at Osamu. The boy has donned his own yukata as well, surprisingly. And looks completely unbothered by the itchy fabric, to his jealousy. It’s not like Rintarou chose to wear a yukata, really—it’s a tradition his family likes to uphold every year for festivals. But this year in particular, the twins have decided to join along. He supposes they didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable being the only one in traditional dress. The thought alone is moving, not that Rintarou would ever say that out loud. 

“Smells like it’s gonna rain,” Osamu mumbles beside him. They sit on the doorsteps, waiting for Atsumu to get ready. Rintarou follows his gaze to clouds brewing above them.

“Atsumu will throw a fit if it really does.”

Osamu laughs. “Right? He’s so excited about Kita-san that it’s gross.”

“Oi, both of ya shut up.” Said devil appears behind them, hair suspiciously neater than usual and yukata already loose. And if there’s some pink tingeing Atsumu’s cheeks, the two don’t say anything about it. 

“Let’s go.”

The sky’s just about setting when they meet Shinsuke. They’re a block away from where the beginnings of a festival flourishes, lanterns swaying and vendors crowding and children’s laughter trilling into the air. Rintarou is the one to spot him first—standing right under the streetlight, Shinsuke hasn’t changed at all. Given, it’s only been a few months since they last saw him. But seeing Shinsuke washes Rintarou over with a nostalgic sense of calm and unwavering clarity, the same stillness of a shrine on a winter morning. 

Atsumu races to meet him, a few steps ahead, throwing his large frame into the embrace so that he nearly topples the poor boy.

“Kita! Did ya miss me~”

Rintarou and Osamu exchange a look. It’s not unexpected, but still. This is interesting.

“You’re crushing me, Atsumu.” Shinsuke, stoic as ever, but lips tugging into the smallest smile. He greets them as always: composed, polite, undeniably Kita-like.

“Wait for us, ‘Tsumu!”

“Kita-san!”

“Ah, if I’d known we’d be wearing yukatas, I…” Shinsuke frowns down at his attire—a simple tee and shorts, impeccably ironed. Rintarou wonders how the guy never has a wrinkle on him, seriously. There’s not even a hair on his head swept in the wrong direction despite the wind. “Shouldn’t have underdressed…”

“Don’t worry, Kita! Yer quite the catch like this, too,” Atsumu teases, looming over Shinsuke. “Oi, did ya get shorter?”

“It’s you that’s gotten taller, idiot,” Osamu grumbles when they catch up. “How’ve ya been, Kita-san?”

“Osamu,” Shinsuke greets, and verts his eyes to Rintarou next to him. His face—just the slightest—shifts with something almost pitiful. Rintarou feels a prickle of annoyance. “Suna.”

“Hey, captain.” Rintarou leaves no room to entertain him, bitterly reminded of their call. “Good to see you again.” _Don’t bring anything up, please._ He adds, “Although I’m sure Atsumu’s missed you the most.”

Osamu’s already got a sly grin beside him. “Oh, yeah. He’s been whining nonstop about this special _Shin-kun_ all day.”

“Ya both fuck off!” But they’re already in a laughing fit, snarky comments wheezing in between them until they’re out of breath.

Even Shinsuke is caught off guard, barely letting the surprise ripple across before he straightens his face. Looking at Rintarou now, as they start walking into the festival.

The twins are bickering ahead, weaving through the growing swarm of people in the street. Clad in color, the tangy scent of takoyaki, and traditional drums rumbling in the far distance.

Shinsuke falls into step with him, pale under the darkening sky. “So training camp is soon, yeah?”

Rintarou tries not to itch at his yukata again. “Two days.” 

“Hope yer not causing as much trouble, the two of ya.” He nods between him and Osamu. _If you’re going to tell him, you should do it soon._

Rintarou just about rolls his eyes. “No worries, captain. You’ll get wrinkles at this rate.” _Don’t do this. Not right now._

He can’t stand the way Shinsuke stops to look at him. Fierce and disciplined, this silent intense gaze of too many words he’d rather not hear. 

“Look,” Rintarou says. “I’ve moved past it, a long time ago. Before you or Atsumu or anyone had shit to say about it. It’s not going to happen—”

“The hell yer talkin’ about over there?” Atsumu yells between them, grabbing Shinsuke by the elbow. “C’mon! They’ve got the folk dance starting soon!”

“Dance?” Shinsuke, bewildered. But he lets himself be dragged into the crowd gathering at the courtyard, music already bellowing through the stocky speakers.

“What are they, old ladies?” Osamu quips, shoulders knocking with Rintarou as he’s by his side once again. “Oi, what’s with the tense face? Did Kita-san say somethin’?”

He’s awful close now, his face an inch or two or even less from Rintarou’s. He’s glowing, or maybe it’s a trick of the light. Rintarou stares, suddenly speechless.

“Sunarin?”

“Huh? Oh,” Rintarou waves it off. His face feels a little hot. “Just. College stuff.”

Osamu reaches for his forearm, rough fingers skidding across his wrist. It sends lightning down Rintarou’s arm, and he warms with the storm brewing between their skin. Then, realization clouding over them, Osamu pulls back from Rintarou as if he’s been scalded. 

“Sorry, I—” And he’s fidgeting, an odd image, this Osamu suddenly flustered and pointing in another direction— “We should go—ya know, they—”

“Right,” Rintarou says, a little winded. They were almost holding hands. “Yeah, let’s go.”

The hot night licks the static air with the last of the setting sun. Moist skin brushes, the scent of smoke and dew lingering high above them. A group of children carrying sparklers running past them, their small bodies vibrating with excitement. The square where the bulk of festivities simmer is bustling, and in the midst of it is the folk dance: men and women, young and old, dancing bad and good. 

They spot Atsumu and Shinsuke, moving like some crazed wedding couple, long awkward limbs knocking but the silly boyish smiles etched onto their faces.

“Look at them,” Osamu snickers. He’s whipping his phone out, grinning like a madman. “Wait until the team chat sees _this_.”

“Disgusting.” Rintarou’s voice is heavy with fondness.

They grow bored (read: grossed out) by watching Atsumu and Shinsuke all lovey-dovey, so Rintarou and Osamu continue on without them. Just the two of them again, a feeling he could never get tired of. They decide to bet on the game stalls, a simple one—whoever loses out of all games in total will pay for snacks, rule of the jungle.

“What are we, five?” Rintarou grumbles when Osamu brings him to the goldfish sukui: a kiddie pool, surrounded by kids and their little plastic bowls, ridiculously fighting over the tiny creatures swimming inside. 

“It’s warm-up,” Osamu says matter-of-factly. They’re practically towering over the group of children, and the stall keeper is just about shooed them off if they hadn’t insisted that they were here to _play_ , obaa-san, do we look like smugglers to you?

So the two try their hand, goldfish swarming in and out of their grasp until one of their _poi_ manages to break loose first. Rintarou’s paper scoop folds in itself in the water first and the bell dings a winner—Osamu looking a little too proud.

“This is the first game I’m winnin’ of all,” he gloats, awfully so for someone who’s barely beat him at a children’s game.

“You said it was a warm-up game,” Rintarou points.

“Well, if _I’d_ lost, it would’ve been a warm-up game.”

“...Asshole.”

Rintarou gets him back at ring toss, Osamu clears his rounds at the shooting game. They knock each other out at checkers surrounded by the old men in their gruff beards egging them on. They go for more scooping games but by then they’re warded off by stall keepers for being teenage nuisances, and when they’ve finally exhausted the entire street with their heated competition, it’s Osamu that comes out the loser.

Somehow, Rintarou’s gleaning in his usual quiet, smug victory is far more annoying, Osamu complains.

“Yer killin’ me,” he says when Rintarou comes back arms overwhelmed with the mouth-watering aroma of street food delicacies. The look on Osamu’s face tells him the other boy doesn’t even want to know the price.

“It’s for the both of us,” Rintarou shoves a portion of the goods into his hands, “Don’t be dramatic, idiot.”

Mochi and cream puffs and chips crunching under their elbows. Popsicle bars and taiyaki and Coca-Cola mixed with Ramune, sizzling in their plastic cups. Throwing peanuts at each other's mouths, gaping like fish out of water; trying to sneak beer into their cups if it isn’t for Shinsuke catching them right at the cooler, pinching their ears—like the days he’d find them messing around in the locker room, Rintarou is unkindly reminded; shoving leftovers to Atsumu, who throws a fit but takes it nevertheless.

Sweet sour tongues and candy-tinged fingers and Osamu, laughing in his ear as they head out onto the old hill. 

They secure their own seats on top, far from even a trickle of the crowd. The fireworks show will start soon, and they stand there, flapping yukatas and black sky and deep in thought. 

“No stars,” Osamu murmurs, looking up.

Rintarou wears a small smile. “No stars.”

A beat of gentle silence. Two boys standing on top of a hill in quiet disarray.

“Sunarin.” 

“Yeah?”

“I—” Osamu cuts himself off, capricious. A little sentimental as he says, “I can’t believe we’re graduating already.”

Rintarou clutches at the lapel of his yukata again as a gust of summer wind curls between them: “Don’t get sappy on me now, Miya Osamu.”

“Fuck you,” but he’s gone soft. His voice fresh cotton kind of soft, drowning him in white clouds. “Ya never give me the chance to get serious, do ya?”

Rintarou closes his eyes, chest bubbling. Doesn’t even retort like he would’ve, but laughs. His laugh is a long raspy hum against a rapidly beating heart. Osamu, he thinks and unthinks. Osamu Osamu Osamu. 

Has he ever felt this way before? The Osamu who makes him pack onigiri on game days, the Osamu who keeps him awake at night listening to shitty heartbreak indie. The Osamu who snarks the same he loves, the Osamu who sucks at arcade games. This Osamu, whose coarse hands kiss warmth into his skin, the first star Rintarou has ever touched. 

Rintarou inhales. Exhales.

“Osamu—”

“Suna—”

Then, this awkward pause reeling with hesitance. A frantic noise escapes him. “No, you go.”

Osamu wrings his hands a little—is he shivering? “We’ve known each other for a long time. But I don’t think I’ve been completely honest with ya.”

His lungs feeling like they’ll collapse on himself. He can’t trust himself to speak yet.

“And ya deserve to know. Because you’re—” and does a funny little thing with his hand— “you. So just listen t’ me, alright? No interrupting, ya bastard.”

“I’m listening.” Rintarou doesn’t know what else to say, with his heartbeat blaring blood into his ears. 

“ ‘m not going t’ be a coward about it, either.” Osamu adds, looking at Rintarou pointedly.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Rintarou agrees. 

Osamu slips into a wry, heartbreaking smile. “Well, here it goes.”

Right now would be a good time to laugh. To quip the punchline. To ruin this mood. Rintarou doesn’t, when he’s tingling all over with anticipation. With hope.

He takes a shaky breath. “Alright.”

This fucking profound, deafening pause. His tongue tastes like he’s on the edge of something, _something_ , brimming at the sensation—and—just about Osamu’s mouth opens—

The fireworks go off. A sputtering, reckless, monstrous noise. The world caves on them and then there are reds flaming, yellows scorching, blues shuddering into black. Brilliant vibrations moving above them like waves crashing against the shore, one after another. Born bright, burst infinite, die shattering. It sounds like the sky is on fire.

But Rintarou isn’t looking at the sky. Everything is in slow motion as he searches for what Osamu is saying. He’s reading his lips, forming into syllables he’d never think he’d hear in his life: 

_I like you, Suna Rintarou._

Silence. Rintarou can’t hear a damn thing. The flashing sky falls upon them like TV static, a distant flickering noise. There is just Osamu, chest heaving and clothes rippling into the wind. Suddenly he feels too far, like he could vanish any moment if Rintarou doesn’t reach out to him first.

Rintarou extends his hand, only to find his own arm holding drops of water. His cheeks feel wet, but he’s not crying. Rintarou looks up. It’s pouring rain.

Down below, the scuffles and startles of the crowd:

“Shit, it’s raining.”

“Did you bring an umbrella?”

“Come under here!”

These jumble of voices resounding under them, clusters of people rushing from the sudden storm. But neither of them move quite yet. They are the only ones in the world who have not given back to time, the only ones tethering away from reality in this sheer breath of moment. 

An image burning into the back of his mind: Osamu’s drenched yukata, linen creatures and cotton bamboo soaked; lightning striking blue against red fireworks like the battles of myths; Rintarou staring back at him, caught in a dream. 

Osamu is a painting of another world. Rintarou doesn’t know if he’s breathing. Or thinking. It really must be a dream.

The painting moves towards him, grabs his arm. He appears like an ancient deity, gray hair turned gold under the kindled sky. 

“C’mon, yer goin’ to get sick like this if we stay out here any longer.”

They relocate as the rain gets heavier, three blocks of muddy puddles and raindrops trickling under their clothes before they decide it’s too far of a walk to home.

They take shelter under the canopy of the ramen shop, this dinky corner restaurant. The two of them, wet to the bone. Kanji lanterns and a flickering neon sign above, meat sizzling and chatter hushing from the inside. Streams of water slip from the flapping cover of the overhead, and the dim light of the restaurant, casting an old yellow glow against their bodies into intertwined shadows.

They don’t say anything for a long time. Just standing there, looking out into the storm, rain flushing out the silence. _Where to begin_ , Rintarou steals a glance at Osamu, and his heart fills with something incredible.

“Miya Osamu,” he says when he finds his voice. He says it like they are his first words. He says it like it is all he has ever known.

“Suna,” and Osamu shifts his whole body to face him. It’s hard to make out his expression in the dark. “About what I said, earlier—I’m sorry. Forget about it.”

Rintarou turns sharply. He can't imagine how crestfallen he sounds, “What? Why?”

“I mean, I’m yer best friend.”

“You still are.”

Osamu, surprised. “Still, ya looked mad when I...”

“I’m not—” Rintarou bites back a bitter laugh. “Okay, maybe. Only ‘cause you beat me to it first, asshole. Do you know how hard it was for me to work up the courage? And then you—did it so easily, not knowing the outcome. Weren’t you afraid? What if I hurt you?”

“Suna Rintarou, hurting me?” Amused, Osamu cards his hand under Rintarou’s ear. It tickles the side of his neck. “Of course, I was scared. But I wanted to tell you more than anything.”

“So you can’t take it back now, alright?” Rintarou says, firm. “Don’t be a coward now. I’ve been enough of a coward for the two of us already.”

Osamu staring back at him, hand gliding to the back of his neck. This hand cool, steady, against his skin like a summer love song.

“Okay. I like you.” 

A little breathless, Rintarou reaches for Osamu’s face, thumbing at his cheekbone.

“I like you too, Miya Osamu.”

There should be a guidebook for kissing or something, because at first their noses collide and their lips barely graze. Rintarou pulls back laughing, but then Osamu is there catching him, bringing him in, easing the laughter off his tongue.

No fireworks. Just the drowning street and bright little restaurant and two boys in between. Osamu has his mouth parted, gentle and blazing and fearless. Lightning running down his wrist, tingling on his lips, sparking every nerve in his system. Rintarou breathes in the world and lets it all back out into Osamu. 

They unravel, gasping, then clumsy hands finding each other in the night. Osamu’s hand and his fold over each other. He’s so, so warm. 

Rintarou leans to the touch, still dazed. “Holy shit.”

“Holy shit,” Osamu agrees.

“It’s…” Adrenaline and tenderness and everything in between. “I’m glad. Thought it’d be more awkward.”

“Why?” Osamu swipes his thumb under his chin. His eyes are dark. “My heart has known you all my life, Suna Rintarou.”

Despite himself, Rintarou laughs. This laugh, this time loud and ringing, the unforgettable melody striking against the storm.

“That was awful.” 

Osamu groans when Rintarou punches him on the chest. “Fuck, it sounded cooler in my head.”

He’s smiling too hard to even quip another retort. Rintarou lets his hand linger on the boy and pulls Osamu back in.

Someone once told him that rain is the way the sky caresses earth. As his tongue glides through Osamu’s mouth, Rintarou thinks he understands now. _This is rain_ , and he presses against sugar-coated lips as soil devours the world’s tears. This is where we meet, sky to earth and you and me, interchangeable. 

Osamu and Rintarou, Rintarou and Osamu. Two boys in love, two forces of nature. 

**Author's Note:**

> — the festival that takes place in the story is the hanabi taikai, basically an annual summer festival celebrated all over japan. i have no clue which part of hyogo they live in so i imagined a small-town event with the most common festivities, hence them playing these little traditional games and folk dances. also, yukatas/kimonos are often worn during festivals but not necessarily expected
> 
> —the style of writing was partially inspired by the novel AADDTSOTU and the Moonlight (2016) screenplay, both of which are drastically different but beautifully illustrated queer POC stories
> 
> —deleted scene / _“What’s your type, Osamu?”_
> 
> _Osamu shrugs and tugs at the collar of his shirt. “I don’t really care how they look… Someone that gets along well with me is enough.”_
> 
> _Rintarou can’t help it. He lets out a laugh._
> 
> _“What?”_
> 
> _“Of course you’d want someone to get along with, that’s obvious!”_
> 
> _“Then why the fuck are Atsumu and Shinsuke dating?”_
> 
> thanks for reading! you can talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/OMlKUN) or ask some questions [here](https://curiouscat.me/omisgf)


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